Choice — Drollery: Songs and Sonnets
The Broken Heart
1.
Deare Love let me this evening dye,
Oh smile not to prevent it,
But use this opportunity,
Or we shall both repent it:
Frown quickly then, and break my heart,
That so my way of dying
May, though my life were full of smart,
Be worth the worlds envying.
2.
Some striving knowledge to refine,
Consume themselves with thinking,
And some who friendship seale in wine
Are kindly kill’d with drinking:
And some are rackt on th’ Indian coast,
Thither by gain invited,
Some are in smoke of battailes lost,
Whom Drummes not Lutes delighted.
3.
Alas how poorely these depart,
Their graves still unattended,
Who dies not of a broken heart,
Is not in death commended.
His memory is ever sweet,
All praise and pity moving,
Who kindly at his Mistresse feet
Doth dye with over-loving.
4.
And now thou frown’st, and now I dye,
My corps by Lovers follow’d,
Which streight shall by dead lovers lye,
For that ground’s onely hollow’d: [hallow’d]
If Priest take’t ill I have a grave,
My death not well approving,
The Poets my estate shall have
To teach them th’ art of loving.
5.
And now let Lovers ring their bells,
For thy poore youth departed;
Which every Lover els excels,
That is not broken hearted.
My grave with flowers let virgins strow,
For if thy teares fall neare them,
They’l so excell in scent and shew,
Thy selfe wilt shortly weare them.
6.
Such Flowers how much will Flora prise,
That’s on a Lover growing,
And watred with his Mistris eyes,
With pity overflowing?
A grave so deckt, well, though thou art [? will]
Yet fearfull to come nigh me,
Provoke thee straight to break thy heart,
And lie down boldly by me.
7.
Then every where shall all bells ring,
Whilst all to blacknesse turning,
All torches burn, and all quires sing,
As Nature’s self were mourning.
Yet we hereafter shall be found
By Destiny’s right placing,
Making like Flowers, Love under ground,
Whose Roots are still embracing.